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The following is a copy of the Veto which the Mai/or of 
Georgetoiun sent to the Councils on Friday last and 
which has not been disposed of hy them : 

Mayor's Office, 
Georgetown, D. C, May 2\st, 18G4. 

Gentlemen: 

Oil the 21st of February, 1863, a resolution was 
approved by which I was instructed " to advertise for 
proposals for putting a new roof upon the Market 
House." On the 27th day of the next month, I called 
the attention of the Corporation to the subject of that 
resolution and recommended, that, instead of repairing 
the old house, you would take measures to remove that 
unsightly old fabric, and replace it with a structure 
which would have some resemblance to the approved 
architecture of modern times. 

I was then informed by an architect of great ability 
and experience that a house of approved style, to ex- 
tend from Bridge street to the Canal, with a cellar and 
two stories its whole length, to be constructed of good 
materials, and of the best workmanship, could be built 
for the sum of twenty-two thousands dollars. I, then, 



had no hesitation to recommend to the Councils, that 
a new Market House should be erected without delay. 

But, from that day to this, the project has been beset 
with obstructions and difficulties until they have 
reached a magnitude, which, in my judgment, demands 
the most mature deliberation of those to whom the 
people of this town have committed the custody of 
their municipal affairs, and which forbids, as I think, 
the further prosecution of that work at this critical 
time. 

This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that the 
very gentlemen who are loudest in their demands for 
the immediate erection of a Market House, are at 
variance in almost the whole of their ideas as to the 
particular plan upon which it should be built. They 
not only differ as to the plan, but still more widely 
disagree as to the sum which it should cost the town. 
But, in the absence of all unanimity upon these two 
important points, you have reluctantly and finally com- 
promised upon the proposition to build a house which 
pleases no body, and which will, eventually, cost the 
town more than $50,000. 

In the midst of a great national disturbance and in 
the present state of the finances of the Coi*poration, 
such an undertaking as the one now proposed is well 
calculated to excite the gravest apprehensions of a peo- 
ple who are already ground do\vn by tax upon tax, and 



Gift. 

W. i_i. baoemaker 



from which there is no prospect of relief for years to 
come. 

The immense sum which the building is to cost in- 
vohes a most serious consideration, and upon that point 
1 beg leave to make a few brief suggestions. 

Since the Holland debt was taken off of our hands 
by Congress, at no time have we been so much in debt 
as now ; at no time, within the last forty years, has it 
been so hard a matter for our people to support their 
families, no matter how hard they may work and to 
what extent they may subject themselves to the most 
rigid demands of economy and self-denial — at no time 
within the last fifty years would the erection of a Mar- 
ket House cost as heavy a sum as it would now. These 
stern facts are all staring us in the face, and admon- 
ish us that the day for prudence and frugality in the 
. administration of our finances has fully arrived. 

Before we create a new debt of $50,000, it would 
be well enough for us to look at the financial condi- 
tion of the Corporation, and what are to be the probable 
demands upon the pockets of our people, in the way 
of taxation, for the time to come. 

The Clerk, in his report of the 31st of December 
last, estimated our expenditures during the present year 
at $45,015 80; since that time we have contracted an 
additional debt of $20,000, which will add $1,200 more 
to our yearly burdens. We are soon to have another 



draft upon us to fill the ranks of our armies which will 
involve another debt of some twenty or thirty thousand 
dollars with a consequent increase of interest. Then 
we are to have the tax upon incomes, as well as the 
regular direct tax, which will add many thousands to 
the expenses of the people. Our police others are to 
cost us, for the time to come, not less than $5,000 a 
year under the most favorable legislation that we can 
obtain from Congress, and it will be a great deal 
more than that if some of the propositions before that 
body should be adopted. This is a 7iew item of experv- 
diture. 

I am aware of the fact that there exists in the 
minds of some gentlemen the delusive idea that the 
building of a Market House will involve no real bur- 
den upon the people, because, as they assume, the rev- 
enues from it will not only pay the interest on its cost 
but that said revenues will, also, eventually extinguish 
the debt itself. 

This theory is at war with the plainest teaching of 
experience and is refuted by the suggestions of com- 
mon sense. 

The Market House, if built, must be paid for, if 
paid for at all, with money fresh from the pockets of 
our citizens. Its cost, whatever that may be, in prin- 
cipal and interest, will, eventually, be just so much tax 
upon the people in whatever form, direct or indirect, 



it may be imposed upon them. Whether it be a direct 
tax, a capitation tax, or the more unseen and delusive 
one of selling the stalls, benches, and stands, and then 
reaping an annual rent from them afterwards, the u])- 
shot will be the same, and that will be that about 
seventy thousand dollars will have been taken m\t of 
the pockets of the people for a new Market House. — 
Arithmetic and the English language can work out and 
state no other conclusion than that. It is quite easy 
to indulge in refined theories and fanciful speculations, 
and however amusing they may all be in the abstract 
yet they will all be smashed up by the hard and irre- 
sistible logic of a tax-gather of some kind. 

Should the proposed building involve a debt of 
$50,000, and it will, under the proposed contract, cost 
you more than that, no plan can be devised for its 
extinguishment that will prevent an additional cost of 
$20,000 for interest. And I here only assume tliat the 
average time, when the interest wdll be running upon 
the whole debt, will not exceed six years. I presume 
that no prudent or experienced person would allow 
himself to anticipate an earlier extinguishment than 
that. Then your Market House will have cost you 
$70,000. 

Now the question is this — do you think, gentlemen, 
that the people of this town would consent to have a 
direct tax imposed upon them for six years to build a 



:Market House to cost $ 7(),()()0 — do you think that 
tliey would submit to it, for a single moment 1 Yet 
that is substantially and truly the identical measure to 
which I now, after mature deliberation, most respect- 
fully decline to give my approval. If you* take ^70,- 
000 out of the peoples pockets in the course of six 
years to build a Market House, the hardship and 
burden will be the same, dollar for dollar, whether you 
take it from them directly or indirectly. If that be 
not so, cause and effect have ceased to have any rela- 
tion to each other, and there will be no such thing as 
a financial blunder in the conduct of your affairs for 
the time to come. 

A thousand dollars judiciously spent in repairing 
the old Market House, will make it just as serviceable 
and commodious as it has been for the last sixty years. 
Certainly we can use it for another year or two until 
the prices of building will be reduced at least fifty per 
cent. 

I have not heard that a solitary citizen has petitioned 
you to erect a new Market House. It will seem to you 
a very singular thing that the whole people of the town, 
who see that house all the time, not one of them have 
asked you to spend a dollar in the way you propose. 
If there were a pressure of public sentiment bearing 
heavily upon you in favor of that measure, it might 
seem that you had to yield to it. But so far from that 



being the case not even a verbal whisper has gone up 
to the Councils in favor of the measure. 

It is an unpleasant task for me to perform to veto a 
measure of a body of gentlemen whose judgment and 
^general character entitle them to so much respect, but, 
after the most careful consideration of the whole sub- 
ject, so far as I have been able to understand it, 1 am 
constrained by an imperious sense of duty to return to 
you, without my approval, your resolution entitled 
" A resolution approving the Contract to build a Mar- 
ket House." 

Very respectfully, 

HENRY ADDISON, 

Mayor. 
Hon. Board of Aldermen 

AND Board of Common Council. 



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